Ending
by Chikku-Chikku
Summary: #1. Izaya knew that the ending was just the beginning.


**Ending**

_Theme #1_

* * *

"Finally, I'm done with it!"

He gave a long drawn-out sigh and slumped back in his chair. Crimson-red eyes stared daggers at the rumpled sheet of paper in front of him, and it took all of Izaya's willpower to stop his hand from scribbling out the entire message and starting over again. _No_. He'd had enough. This was (literally) his fifteenth attempt at writing a comprehensible letter to that damn brutish protozoan, and he sure as hell wasn't aiming for a sixteenth try.

The soon-to-be-informant broker grinned wryly. Who would have ever thought that just _writing_ to Shizuo could be so hard? He'd even stayed up the previous nights just thinking about what to put in his monstrous, filled-with-lovely-dialogue-and-comments-to-piss-Shizu-chan-off letter. Izaya knew they had never actually communicated beyond the "IZAYAAAAAA! I'ma fucking kill you!" and "Shizu-chan is so stupid~!" before today, and he was definitely going to change that, all right.

Izaya glanced at his clock and grinned at the 2:15 A.M. that stared back. He quickly grabbed his coat, the letter, and his cellphone before locking the door to his apartment shut behind him. Shizuo had never been the brightest light-bulb in the closet, but Izaya knew that the idiot's minuscule brain had to comprehend at least _some_ sort of emotion beside anger; that was the only reason why he'd even bothered to try _this_ in the first place.

His grip on the letter tightened.

Izaya had never planned for it to end up like this. But he'd never planned on meeting up with and joining the yazuka, either. Things just sort of worked out that way – he was interested in 'meeting' with various people of all ages, was currently jobless, and someone was willing to offer him work involving continuous, intimate human contact everyday, with very high pay. How could he resist?

"Sorry, Shizu-chan," the teenager murmured as he approached the house belonging to his number one enemy and quite possibly the strongest boy in both Ikebukuro and Shinjuku.

For a second, he saw a light flicker on the house's farthest window, the window that belonged to a certain stupid brute. The sight was ever so familiar, and Izaya could imagine Shizuo's form walking around the room in a circle, angrily muttering about the current banes of his life – one of which definitely had to be Izaya. The teenager snickered, but his red eyes were filled with warmth. It was so tempting to ring the doorbell and have a nice friendly "chat" with Shizuo before giving him the letter, teasing him a bit before finally handing him the now-crumpled thing.

But Izaya felt a strange lump in his throat as he continued to stare at the shadowy figure in the house. He hadn't realized it himself, but he was shaking; he wasn't even sure if it was because of the October chill or something else entirely different.

"I won't see you for a long time after today, Shizu-chan," Izaya said softly. His eyes roamed around the house, then down towards the neighborhood, also a familiar sight to him. How many times had he stalked Shizuo back to this place, only to merrily run the opposite way when the idiot had finally realized he was being followed?

Izaya lifted his head to the sky and over the horizon, to the various shapes of buildings and skyscrapers towering above him. He closed his eyes for a brief second and breathed in the scent of polluted air, the bittersweet aroma of wilted flowers, the odd mixture of dew and grass from the previous night's rain, and the barely noticeable scent of something else… Izaya's chest constricted unnaturally as he realized – the smell of _Shizuo_ was mixed somewhere in there too. Before he could stop it, the thoughts were already spoken.

_You know, I might actually miss this place. Ikebukuro, Raijin High, that new Sushi restaurant – Sushi Russia or something? And even all my quirky little humans here too... That really stupid bald-headed sensei, Shinra, Dotachin…_

_Shizu-chan…_

"Ah, what's this~?" the raven-haired boy _tsk_ed at himself. "How completely idiotic of me!" What was the use of feeling nostalgia now? He was going to change everything starting from today onward. Especially his and Shizuo's relationship.

_It wasn't like our relationship hadn't been strained from the start. What difference does this make?_

Izaya brought his gaze to the window again and sighed. He knew this one act tomorrow would guarantee Shizuo's absolute hatred for him.

Before he had another chance at self-doubt, Izaya quickly rushed forward and rang the doorbell. He was about to drop the letter on the doorstep and get the hell out of there, but the sight of the wrinkled envelope stopped him short.

How many times had he rewritten the stupid thing? Crossing out words that he thought too big for Shizu-chan's vocabulary or erasing parts that were too embarrassing to even consider in the first place (that he'd accidentally put there on a surge of impulse)? Now that he thought about it, the whole idea was pretty stupid and pointless. It wasn't like he was close friends with Shizuo… it wasn't like Shizuo liked him even a tiny bit… it wasn't like he especially _favored_ Shizuo above all his other humans...

"Ah, how I do hate you so much, Shizu-chan," Izaya murmured. He cast a hasty glance at the light flickering off in Shizuo's room and decided he had to make up his mind _now_.

The raven-haired boy was very aware of his love for chit-chat. Sometimes he talked so much that he could just hear Shizuo's blood pulsing from anger at the sound of his voice, miles away. Even the letter in his hand, which he knew back and front by now, was full of his incessant chattering and nonstop jabs at the brute.

So Izaya did the only thing he could, the only thing that could possibly get the message across to Shizu-chan without him having any later regrets of the protozoan's response – he tore the letter in half, then into fourths, and without a glance back, raced away into the night before the door even had a chance to open.

~.

"What the hell?"

When Shizuo finally answered the door, after an initial two minutes of waiting for his brother or parents to wake up and answer it (yeah, so he was lazy, alright?), all he found on the empty porch was a mess of scattered papers. The teenager felt annoyed and angry at being interrupted in the middle of his muttered rant about Izaya and all the evils in the world, and cursed whatever godforsaken being that'd stayed awake at such an hour just to bother him. He was about to slam the door shut when he caught sight of one ragged part of the paper; it was flipped sideways and scribbled with familiar yet small handwriting.

Shizuo instantly knew it was a mistake when he reached down for the message and read the tiny, scripted words. He immediately felt his vein pulse, for no absolute reason at all, even as his heart began racing at the sudden adrenaline fueling it. He had no doubt who had written this _annoying _piece of paper, couldn't help but bellow out the hated name to the star-scattered sky above,

"IZAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

~.

Miles away, Izaya grinned as he slowed down to his apartment in Shinjuku.

Really now, Shizu-chan could be so loud!

His cheerful smile dimmed slightly as he glanced at the men waiting before his complex, suitcases and serious expressions plastered on. Their boring faces left an unexpectedly bitter taste in his mouth, and he wondered yet again if this was the right choice. Izaya knew it was probably too late to regret his decision, since the first major mission was to begin in only a few more hours. He'd already had the police station telephoned for the event about to unfold, the one which would truly start the cycle of ruining Heiwajima Shizuo's life. Everything was going according to plan. But still...

_Shizuo…_

Izaya finally smiled and stepped forth to greet the men, gesturing towards his apartment. His eyes were sparkling bright, and in his left fist, he clenched tightly to a slip of crumpled and grainy paper.

Even if today was the last day he was going to see Shizuo, as their high school life ended and a new one began, Izaya was sure that nothing was going to change.

_"IZAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"_

Knew that nothing would ever change.

* * *

"_The ending is just the beginning, isn't it, Shizu-chan?"_

* * *

**A/N**: Yesh, the above is what the little slip of paper said :'D A quick oneshot I thought I'd do in celebration of Chinese/Vietnamese New Years! I kinda had to rush to finish it, so it's not my best... Hope to keep continuing the 100 theme challenge in other oneshots :3

So yeah, this is how it all started, neh?

I hope you guys enjoyed it! Reviews and critiques are love :'D

Chuc Mung Nam Moi, everyone~


End file.
